Editing Ansible (section)

== Use by later authors ==
Since Le Guin's conception of the ansible, the name of the device has been borrowed by numerous authors. While Le Guin's ansible was said to communicate "instantaneously",<ref name=LeGuin1974/> the name has also been adopted for devices capable of communication at finite speeds that are faster than light.{{who|date=January 2025}} [[David Langford]] publishes the science fiction fanzine and newsletter [[Ansible (magazine)|Ansible]].{{relevance inline|date=January 2025}}{{citation needed|date=January 2025}}

=== Orson Scott Card's works ===

American author [[Orson Scott Card]] in his ''[[Ender's Game (series)|Ender's Game]]'' novels used the term "ansible" as an unofficial name for the "Philotic Parallax Instantaneous Communicator" device, which transmits information across infinite distances with no time delay.<ref name=Card1977/> In the first ''[[Ender's Game]]'' novel (1985), Colonel Graff states that "somebody dredged the name ''ansible'' out of an old book somewhere".<ref name=Card1977/> In an answer on the question-and-answer website [[Quora]], Card explained why he chose to appropriate LeGuin's term "ansible" instead of developing a new in-universe name for one:

<blockquote>
In a FTL universe, you have several levels. [If you] can travel hyperfast, but no radio signal can outstrip [outrun] your ship, [then] you have to carry the mail with you. It's like the way things were between Europe and America before the laying of the successful transatlantic cable. But once it was laid, messages could be sent long before a ship could make the passage. That is like the ansible universe in Ursula K. LeGuin's early [[Hainish Cycle|Hainish]] novels. Since I needed to use exactly that rule set, why not use the word – an excellent word – which I apply in the same way we all say 'robot,' an invented word that has entered the language, [and thereby] pay tribute to the writer from whose works I learned the word.<ref name=QuoraOrsonScottCard/>
</blockquote>

Card's ansible in the ''Ender's Game'' universe works via fictional subatomic particles called ''philotes''.<ref name=Card1991/> The two [[quark]]s inside a [[pion|pi meson]] can be separated by an arbitrary distance, while remaining connected by "philotic rays".<ref name=Card1991/> Card's version of the ansible also features in the video game ''[[Advent Rising]]'', which he helped write the story for.<ref name=EnderScript/>

=== Other writers ===
{{Refexample section|date=September 2021}}
Numerous other writers have included ansibles and similar FTL communication devices in their fictional works. Notable examples include:
* [[Christopher Rowley]], in his 1986 novel ''Starhammer'', describes the Deep Link, an instantaneous interstellar communicator. Most commonly used for messaging, it is capable of voice and video conversations as well, although the latter only at great expense<ref name=Rowley1986>{{cite book |last=Rowley |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Rowley |title=[[Starhammer]] |orig-year=1986 |edition=mass ppb. |year=1986 |publisher=[[Ballantine Books]] |location=New York |isbn=0-345-31490-5 |page=151 |quote=...the technology of the Deep Link, which gives us instant communications access across the deeps.}}</ref>
* [[Vernor Vinge]], in the 1988 short story "[[The Blabber]]"<ref name="Vinge"/>
* [[Elizabeth Moon]], in the 1995 novel ''Winning Colors''<ref name=Moon1995/> and the novel [[Vatta's War]]
* [[Jason Jones (programmer)|Jason Jones]], in the 1995 computer game ''[[Marathon 2: Durandal]]''<ref name=Jones/>
* [[L.A. Graf]], in the 1996 ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' novel ''Time's Enemy''<ref name=Graf1996/>
* [[The New Jedi Order]], 1999, featured enemies, the Yuuzhan Vong, use organic communication devices known as villips, which can transmit over infinite distances thanks to telepathic connections formed while being harvested in groups
* [[Philip Pullman]], in the 2000 novel ''[[The Amber Spyglass]]'', part of the ''[[His Dark Materials]]'' trilogy
* [[Neal Asher]], in his Polity series of novels including ''[[Gridlinked]]'' (2001), in which the [[runcible]], named in homage to the ansible,{{cn|date=April 2025}} is an interstellar wormhole generator/teleporter
* [[Dan Simmons]], in the 2003 novel ''[[Ilium (novel)|Ilium]]''<ref name="Simmons"/>
* [[Liu Cixin]], in the 2008 trilogy ''[[Remembrance of Earth's Past]]''
* [[Kim Stanley Robinson]], in the 2012 novel ''[[2312 (novel)|2312]]''<ref name=Robinson2012/>
* [[Becky Chambers (author)|Becky Chambers]], in her Wayfarer novels, including the 2014 novel ''[[The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet]]'', and 2016 novel ''[[A Closed and Common Orbit]]''
* L.J Cohen in the 2014 novel ''Derelict''
* [[Neon Yang]], in the 2017 novella ''Waiting on a Bright Moon''<ref>{{Cite web|last=Yang|first=JY Neon|date=2017-07-12|title=Waiting on a Bright Moon|url=https://www.tor.com/2017/07/12/waiting-on-a-bright-moon/|access-date=2020-09-10|website=Tor.com|language=en-US}}</ref>
* [[J. M. McDermott|Joe M. McDermott]], in the 2017 novel ''The Fortress at the End of Time''<ref name=McDermott2017/>
* Thomas Happ, in the 2021 [[Metroidvania]] [[Axiom Verge 2|''Axiom Verge 2'']], uses the term for superluminal - and transdimensional - communication terminals.
* [[David Wellington (author)|David Wellington]], in the 2024 novel ''Revenant-X''<ref name=Wellington2024/>